OPINION: Mostly gloomy net-zero speech contained a few glimmers of light

OPINION: This week (20 September), the Prime Minister outlined his new framework for how the UK will achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Sunak emphasised the UK’s world-leading commitments and ambitious targets towards net zero which, he claimed, put the country significantly in front of its nearest competitors – but then went on to delay several key policies that will contribute towards meeting the UK’s net-zero ambitions, while also taking aim at more individualistic carbon-saving measures around, carpooling, diet, flying and, sadly, recycling.

Confusion

Although the overarching narrative spoke to a more egalitarian approach of engaging with the public and

ensuring we can all deliver net zero in a fair and equitable way, for the recycling and waste management sector, the substance of the speech delivered significantly less than our fair share and introduced further delay, confusion, and uncertainty about the status of key reforms, which ESA members have already invested significant time and funding to help deliver.

Many across the recycling and waste management sector viewed the Prime Minister’s brief references to our sector as an unnecessary intervention and ultimately a re-brand of existing policy – but we once again await clarity from Defra over the real-world impact and interpretation of these changes.

Looking to wider reforms affecting the sector, we expect to see the cost of treating residual waste increase as carbon pricing is applied later this decade – and there was seemingly no intention to row back on these plans. However, this means the clock is ticking and costs associated with the Emissions Trading Scheme will be hard to avoid without policy action now to drive up recycling rates, particularly for plastics – as we set out in the ESA’s Emissions Trading Scheme Strategy published last week.

Commitment

While the Prime Minister’s speech raised a few eyebrows, it also contained some more positive elements. In particular, Government’s continued commitment to delivering the four carbon capture clusters, supporting the hydrogen economy and overhauling energy grid infrastructure and connection processes so they are fit for purpose and favour generation projects ready to connect – all of which is material to helping our sector reach net zero emissions by 2040 in line with the ESA’s Net Zero strategy.

That said, the current tumultuous nature of the UK’s policy environment does little for investor confidence and hinders the sector’s ability to invest in the technologies and infrastructure required to reach net zero. The narrative put forward by the Prime Minister will not have eased the minds of investors and an impending General Election is likely to further deny our sector the clear strategic policy direction needed to invest confidently.

Sunak’s declared commitment to shift from short-term politics towards long-term strategic decisions would be a welcome cultural change in Westminster, and one that is essential for delivering investment in support of both decarbonisation and resource-efficiency. Our sector has long called for a clear strategic policy pathway which would help business support the UK’s transition to a net zero and circular economy by 2050 – something that we all have a legal (and moral) obligation to achieve.

We have said it multiple times across multiple for now, but the ESA has calculated that its members alone hold the potential to invest more than £10billion over the next decade in new decarbonisation technologies; in new recycling infrastructure and services, and in the green jobs to build, maintain and operate this infrastructure. But this investment will only be unlocked with a clear, well-designed and consistent long-term policy outlook that the Prime Minister’s intervention this week did little to support.